Ahmet Haşim - That Land (voice: İsmet Özel)
THAT TOWN
Let this gentle breeze,
Blowing from the seas, play with your hair.
If only you knew,
With these eyes, gazing at the horizon of evening with the melancholy of longing and exile,
With this sadness, how beautiful you are!
Neither you,
Neither I,
Nor this evening gathered in your beauty,
Nor this azure sea,
A haven for the sorrows of thought,
Are familiar to the generation that does not understand melancholy.
Today's humanity, which calls you only a delicate, fresh woman,
And me only an old fool,
This wretched appetite, this dirty gaze,
Cannot find any meaning in you or me,
Neither a gentle sorrow in this evening,
Nor a resentful
Tremor of concealment and indifference in the calm sea.
You and I
And the sea
And this evening, without a tremor, silent
As if gathering the scent of your soul,
Distant
And separated from a blue-shadowed town
We are condemned to this eternal exile and banishment in this place...
That town?
It remains in the dimly lit regions of imagination;
A blue evening
Always rests upon it;
The sea at its edges
Pours a tranquil sleep upon the souls.
The women there are beautiful, slender, pure, and nocturnal,
There is sadness in all their eyes
They are all sisters or lovers;
They know how to soothe the pain in their language
The tearful kisses on their lips, or,
The silent questioning in their eyes, like a watery well
Their souls are like dense violets from a sorrowful evening
That constantly seek silence and stillness;
The moon's lightless flame of sorrow
As if it has taken refuge in their simple hands
They are so weak, alas,
Their silent and shared sorrow,
Then the pensive evening, that sick sea
They all resemble each other in that place...
That town
In which imaginary continent?
Bounded by which distant river? Is it a place of lies, or does it exist?
But is it a haven of dreams that cannot be found?
I don't know... Only
What I know is, you and I and the blue sea
And this evening that stirs
The strings of sorrow and inspiration within me.
Distant
And separated from a blue-shadowed land
We are condemned to this exile and banishment, forever in this place...
Ahmet Haşim
Poetry and Reflection - September 2, 1909
Note: This poem was translated into Greek in 1932 and into French in 1935.